Topic: Time Capsule

Coming hours after Apple's AirPort Extreme received the teardown treatment, the same was done to the 802.11ac Wi-Fi router's HDD-packing sibling Time Capsule, with results expectedly showing no difference between the two aside from the hard drive and corresponding port.

Apple on Monday announced immediate availability of its next-generation AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule models, each of which feature an all-new "mini tower" design and support for fast 802.11ac wireless.

Apple will soon begin shipping a new version of its AirPort Express portable 802.11n base station, capping a recent series of refreshes to the company's line of WiFi routers ahead of this fall's iCloud launch.

According to one teardown of Apple's Time Capsule released earlier this week, the hard disk drive inside the wireless base station is a consumer version, not a server-grade disk as advertised by Apple.

Rounding out today's Black Friday deals are savings on the first five HP printers to support Apple's wireless printing technology, discounts of up to $51 on Apple's Time Capsule backup appliance, hundreds of dollars in savings on popular digital SLR and point-and-shoot cameras, as well as sales on Wii, XBox, and PlayStation consoles and games.

Customers who bought a faulty Time Capsule in 2008 may be entitled to a free repair or replacement of their hardware, and those who previously paid for a fix could receive a refund, according to a recently updated Apple support document.

Users of Apple's latest Airport Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule hardware, released in October 2009, have reported instability and significant reductions in speed when using the routers at the 5GHz wireless band.

Though it was given a software upgrade to version 3.0 in October, Apple TV sales have remained relatively flat over the past 12 months. Similarly, sales of AirPort base stations have struggled to gain momentum due to higher-than-average price points, resulting in minor share declines.

TomTom has postponed the release of its iPhone hardware accessory kit until October; numerous users who bought a Time Capsule in early 2008 are reporting issues; and an Apple Store robbery is caught on tape.

Apple on Tuesday released Final Cut Pro 6.0.6 to address playback issues on certain Mac Pro and Xserve systems. Separately, the company also issued a bug fix update for Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, and AirPort Express Base Stations that include 802.11n support.

While it's inevitable that Apple will at some point this year boost the capacity of its Time Capsule backup appliances, promotional images showing packing for a model with twice as much storage appear to be an oversight dating back to the release of dual-band models a month ago.